The production of at least partially wood-based chipboard or particleboard panels, for example, OSB or MDF panels, is existing prior art. In summary, during the production of oriented strand boards (OSB), various fractions are screened out from provided base material, pretreated, coated with glue, scattered uniformly by means of scattering machines onto a shaping belt, and compressed in presses (continuously or in cycles). Fiberboard (for example, MDF) is different therefrom, in the case of which the base material is typically macerated using steam in a refiner and broken down into relatively small fibrous material. The fundamental requirements of this technology have included for decades the optimum production and the transport of so-called mats on a shaping belt.
A device and a method for scattering particles to form a nonwoven material are known from DE 198 58 096 A1, in which it is described very extensively and in great detail how mats (nonwoven materials) are scattered, subsequently pretreated and transported, and compressed in a press, which operates continuously or in cycles. In particular, in this disclosure the details are also discussed of how a mat is optimally trimmed (continuously cut on the longitudinal sides) and also how different widths of a mat can be set and utilized in a facility for producing different batch sizes. In particular, it is emphasized that in addition to trimming, the mat can be guided on its longitudinal sides (narrow sides) with the aid of edge plates along the transport direction. Furthermore, it is disclosed that mats of different widths can be produced at a facility, if the trimming devices are displaceable and settable transversely to the transport direction. Fundamentally, the trimming and also the device and the method mentioned above as examples of the prior art have proven themselves.
In the course of the progress in the last decade and newly developed, better suitable gluing systems (adhesive liquors), steam presses have also increasingly come into use, inter alia. Also, greatly varying compaction and compression strategies for rapid and more effective compaction and deaeration of a mat have been introduced in the course thereof. It is also desired more and more often on the part of the facility operators for panel edges to have superelevated edge densities, in order to cause a certain edge stability with respect to impacts or also processing procedures in the produced panels. If an edge (density) superelevation is now set and scattered only in the scattering device (which possibly can also consist of a plurality of scattering devices), the edge superelevation is typically subsequently at least partially cut off again by a trimming device. The edge superelevations must be set to be correspondingly thick, to display an effect in the further production process. The large material quantity accompanying this, which must be recirculated back into the production circuit, is disadvantageous. In addition, the freshly trimmed narrow sides of a mat arc very susceptible to vibrations and transfers to continuing transport or shaping belts, however, so that in the case of a mat, the narrow sides typically have the appearances of disintegration upon reaching or passing through a preliminary press and/or the main press. The appearances of disintegration are even reinforced in the course of the compaction and/or steaming, if the optional preliminary press or a main press has a relatively steep compaction gradient, so that the excess air/steam between the compacted flat sides (surface top/bottom) must also only escape via the narrow sides and definitely blows out material from the narrow side of the mat during the deaeration procedure. In particular, severe disadvantages result for process variants if a narrow side is not embodied as sufficiently robust.